Transformation Found!

To any of you who have been following my blog, you know that I have spoken and posted photos of the Monarch butterfly bush on our road, often.  It never ceases to fascinate me and when the grandkids come, it is a must visit spot. However, as I have shared....over the past couple of years, I just couldn't find the cocoons.  I found the caterpillars and I saw the butterflies....but it was a mystery as to where the chrysalises were.  They certainly were no where that I could see and I searched high and low all over the bush.

So today I was talking to the gardener and sharing my dilemma and he smiled and said "come with me"....up the driveway we walked and under the porch edge we looked....about 50 feet away....and there they were!  Hanging like precious jewels!  Some opened and some awaiting the full transformation. That's a long long way for a caterpillar to travel, but I guess we all would do anything for the promise of transformation.

This well eaten bush is where it begins.  The butterfly drops the eggs, the eggs hatch and the tiny caterpillar eats the leaves and grows and grows.....and then drops from the bush down to the road and slowly, oh so slowly, inches up the driveway, through the plants, up the wall and attaches itself to the overhang of the porch. 

There the jewel hangs...while within...magic is happening.  From a grounded caterpillar to a the flitting, flying, soaring miracle of a butterfly.  Then the butterfly somehow knows to return to the bush and lay her eggs....and the cycle continues.  Wow!  The cycle of life...just down the road....on a little bush in paradise.